TLC
by staceycj
Summary: Dean always takes care of those he loves.


The days immediately following the Castiel soul induced nuclear explosion had been chaotic and painful. Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of monster souls had been released into the world and try as Dean and Bobby might they couldn't quite figure out what that meant for the world, if it would be worse than an angel induced apocalypse or if it meant that there would be nothing different except more monsters for them to dispatch.

Then there was the whole issue of Sam. The strings that had been holding Sam up snapped, and the adrenalin fueling him just evaporated and he felt to the floor exhausted. In the car, he had been able to talk a little bit, told them something about humpty dumpty being put back together with crazy glue, and he had given a small hint of a Sammy smile when the seizures began. And they weren't just little ones, they were violent, Dean ended up with a broken and bloodied nose, and Sam bit his tongue and lip before the first one stopped.

Sam slipped into unconsciousness after the seizure and Dean panicked. "Bobby! Hospital! Now!" Dean demanded as he smacked Sam's cheeks lightly. "Come on Sammy. Come on. You can't do this to me." He said with tears in his voice. Fear was palpable in the hunk of junk car that Sam had managed to drive to the site of Castiel's explosion.

Sam weaved in and out of consciousness the entire ride to the hospital. He was out cold when they arrived, and Bobby swung the car into the emergency drive. Dean didn't even hesitate, he grabbed his brother, threw him over his shoulder and bolted as fast as a man carrying almost 200 pounds of dead weight could, and he screamed the moment he entered the ER, "Help! My brother needs help!" A kind nurse was at his side in a second with a wheel chair and she quickly assessed the situation and took his brother away from him. Dean tried to follow but there were lots of nurses and security holding him back.

Dean picked at the skin on his fingers, bounced his legs, got coffee, drank the coffee, checked at the nurse's station, and repeated the process until a doctor finally came out and gathered both he and Bobby from the waiting area and brought him back to an unconscious Sam.

"Is he okay?" Dean didn't hear much beyond the fact that Sam was going to be okay with some medication and a lot of rest.

"When can I take him home?"

"We want to keep him overnight for observation."

"Then I can take him home?" Dean asked stealing glances at his baby brother who had never had to spend a day in the hospital, whom had always been healthy as a horse. Dean was always the one lying on that bed, and Dean understood now why Sam always looked so frantic when he finally opened his eyes.

Dean jail broke Sam as soon as possible, and they hightailed it back to the salvage yard, and Dean spent the next week mother henning his little brother, making sure he slept, that when he was having a seizure, they happened at least once every other day, that he had his medication, and an ear to listen just in case Sam was ready to talk about some of that hell he had experienced for over a year.

But most of all Sam slept. And it was a bright clear June afternoon when Dean finally felt safe enough to leave Sam's bedside and go out to the yard and search out his baby whom Bobby said had been towed as gently as possible back to the yard weeks ago.

Displaced gravel skidded up against the tires of the Impala when Dean stopped and looked at her. "Wow. Baby. I'm so sorry." He ran a loving hand over the bent metal. Taking a deep breath he took off his coat and his button down and reached for the took box and went to work.

"Baby, I can't believe that Cass betrayed us like that. Did you see that coming?" he asked the car as he got underneath of her. "I sure didn't. I thought he was my friend. But I guess power trumps friendship." He turned the wrench. "I'm so mad at him for hurting Sam that way." He turned the wrench harder. "He broke his wall. I worked hard to get that wall put up and Cass just puts a damn angelic hand on Sam's forehead, knowing that it will screw Sam up for life, and broke that wall. Broke it and now my brother has to live with seizures. Sam will have them for the rest of his life probably. You know that?" The first damaged piece came off of the car and set it aside.

"I guess it doesn't matter, he's dead now." Dean said and as he went to work on another damaged piece. "All of that power just ate him up and fried him. It was a light show I'll tell you that." Another damaged piece out.

"It's been a while since I've worked on you like this hasn't it baby? Almost 6 years. I promise this time I won't hit you with a crow bar. I shouldn't have taken my anger out on you. You saved our lives." Dean sighed. "I just for the life of me can't figure out what the demons have against you."

"She saved us from the apocalypse." Sam's tired voice said from above him. Dean rolled out from underneath the car in time to watch Sam sit down next to Dean's tool box.

"What in the hell are you doing up and out of bed?"

"Dean…"

"You have your medication on you?"

"Dean.."

"You don't do you?" Dean gave his brother angry eyes and followed with, "You're lucky that I have some in my pocket!" Dean got up and walked over to Sam. "Come on, you need to get back to bed. You don't need the stress."

Sam pulled his arm out of Dean's grip, Dean tried to get his hand on him again, but Sam stood up and held his arms up out of Dean's reach and glared. When Dean quit grabbing for a hand to pull Sam put his arms down while glaring at his brother. "No. I want to be outside. I need some fresh air. I'm all kinds of excited that you are wanting to mother hen me Dean, but right now, I'm okay, and I'd like to be out of that bedroom for something other than having to pee." Dean locked eyes with his brother trying to assess whether or not he should yell at Sam for being disobedient or if he should yell because he was worried, of if he should yell because he felt like yelling, or whether to just let it pass. Dean decided that as long as Sam was within his eye sight then it was okay he could still get to Sam and get medicine in him before he had a seizure that could do a lot of damage. Dean started walking back to the car and said,

"How do you figure?"

"How do I figure what?" Sam asked confused by the sudden switch in conversation.

"How do you figure that the car saved us from the apocalypse?"

"I saw the sun glint on her and something about the shine made me think of all of the time you spent washing her, or all of the times we've spent on the hood watching the stars, or all of the days and nights that I slept in her, or all of the times she got me somewhere safe, she made me remember us. Made me remember being your brother. It helped me come back to myself and grab Lucifer by the tail and force myself back to the surface at the cemetery."

"Really?" Dean said trying to pretend that this information was neither new or interesting.

"Really. Then I saw what I had done to you.."

"Sammy, let's not think about that stuff." Dean said worried that it might trigger a fit. "Water under the bridge, it wasn't you…"

"Dean…"

"No. No." he said and began tweeking things inside the broke car. "Proud of you Sammy." He said unable to look his brother in the eye. "You did good. You put Lucifer in the box, and you were brave enough to get out of your head, to put yourself back together and suffer for the rest of your life for it." Sam licked his lips and watched his shoes, suddenly they were more interesting than his brother's face. Awkwardness pervaded, neither brother was proficient in sharing how they felt about things, and when Dean shared something like that it always took Sam's breath away and he never knew what to say afterwards. He really just wanted to escape, and just as he was about to claim that he was sleepy Dean said, "You called her "she" I've finally worn you down."

The awkwardness immediately dispelled with that comment. Sam smiled and rolled his eyes, "It was a slip of the tongue brother, slip of the tongue."

"Whatever. You can say whatever you want. You still called her "she"." Sam smiled.

"Wanna beer?"

"You can't drink and…"

"Get off it Dean. I'm okay. I read the label." Sam said with a smile. Dean was doing what he did best, giving those he loved much needed TLC.


End file.
